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IDEAL NEWPORT IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



BY 



WILLIAM B. WEEDEN 




Class rs^ 



IDEAL NEWPORT IN THE 
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



BY 

WILLIAM B. WEEDEN 



Rkad before the American Antiqcahian Society, at its Annual 
Meeting in Worcester, October 24, 1906. 



WORCESTER. MASS. 

THE DAVIS PRESS 

1907 






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IDEAL NEWPORT I:N^ THE EIGHTEENTH 
CENTURY. 



At the opening of the eighteenth century, the world 
was growing weary of war. The brutal rule of Spain had 
been overcome and the aggressive ambition of Louis XIV. 
was checked by the diplomatic skill of William of Orange; 
while the increasing sea-power of Great Britain was begin- 
ning to balance the continent. 

The divine mission of Grotius in the previous century 
was bearing fruit, and, though France and England contended 
here and there, these struggles were not wars of extermina- 
tion. Forces other than warlike were getting exercise and 
practice, and where was the opportunity better than in 
a new world, in Aquidneck the isle of peace by the sea? 
Where did the new forms of civilization assert themselves 
beter and in a more graceful form? 

New England was just passing out of the ebb. The 
later seventeenth century had not developed citizens, 
equal to the pioneers who had led the way, but stronger 
men were coming. In the eighties there was a marked 
increase of commerce, of which a large share came to New- 
port. With commerce came the opportunity for that expan- 
sion, which the conditions of the place greatly favored. 
In his Century Sermon of 1738, Callender cited Neale in 
the statement "this is deservedly esteemed the Paradise 
of New England for the fruitfulness of the soil and the 
temperateness of the climate." Enthusiasts for this land- 
scape and climate have magnified and illumined their 
theme, with every resource of rhetoric, as time has gone 
on. "It appeals to one's alertness rather than to a lazy 
receptivity. You miss its quality entirely if your faculties 



are not in a state of real activity. This does not exclude 
composure or imply excitement." 

In winter, there might be difference of opinion. Mr. 
George Bradford, a true lover of nature, told me there was 
all the capricious, beguiling promise of the New England 
spring with double disappointments in effect. Yet a fine 
day can tempt a zealot in this wise. "The lotos-eating 
season is over, plainly, yet there is the same agreeable 
absence of demand on any specific energies as in summer. 
The envelope of color — that delightful garment that New- 
port never puts off — is as evident to the senses as in midsum- 
mer, though more silvery in quality." Richard Gieenough 
claimed it to be the American Venice, according to Dr. Hale. 

Conscious enlargement and the spirit of growth records 
iteelf in 1712, when John Mumford was ordered to survey 
the streets and number them. "The town had grown to 
be the admiration of all and was the metropolitan" said 
the fond record.-^ For the first three decades the expanding 
community was being prepared for the event which was 
greatly to affect it, and to influence all New England. 
Rev. George Berkeley, Dean of Derry, had put forth his 
"Principles of Human Knowledge" in 1710. Flippant 
writers in these two centuries have laughed at the tran- 
scendent principles of Berkeley, but those laugh best who 
laugh last. The Dean only held firmly that " the universally 
acknowledged ultimate cause cannot be the empty abstrac- 
tion called Matter. There must be living mind at the root 
of things. Mind must be the very substance and consistence 
and cause of whatever is. In recognizing this won- 
drous principle, life is simplified to man."^ Certainly the 
world of Knowledge has moved toward rather than away 
from the philosopher, since this was wi-itten. Here was the 
creative and impelling idea needed to lift commercial and 
material Newport out of pioneer life, and into communion 
with an older civilization and a more refined culture. 

Berkeley, on his way to found a college at Bermuda, 
landed at Newport, Jan. 23, 1729, by accident or design as 



* Rhode Island Historical Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 216. 

* Life and Letters of Berkeley, p. 41. 



5 

is disputed, and remained there about three years. Rev. 
James Honyman was preaching in Trinity church, founded 
at tlie beginning of the century, when the letter from 
Dean Berkeley, proposing to land, was received. He read 
it to the congi'egation, dismissing them with a blessing. 
The pastor and his flock repaiied to the wharf in time for 
the landfall. In this dramatic manner, the ideas of the 
old world were received into the new. 

The philosopher confirms all our reports of the beauty 
and extraordinary, progressive character of the place, 
with its 6000 inhabitants. "The most thriving, flourishing 
place in all America for its bigness."^ We shall note the 
sectaries, who" agreed in a rage for finery, the men in 
flaming scarlet coats and waistcoats, laced and fringed 
with brightest glaring yellow. The sly Quakers, not ven- 
turing on these charming coats and waistcoats, yet loving 
finery, figured away with plate on their sideboards."^ 

Graduates from Harvard College were frequent, with 
an occasional native who had been educated at an English 
university. The girls were often sent to Boston for their 
schooHng. 

Dissenters naturally attracted the notice of this good- 
humored ecclesiast. "The inhabitants are of a mixed 
kind, consisting of many sorts and subdivisions of sects. 
Here are four sorts of Anabaptists besides Presbyterians, 
Quakers, Independents, and many of no profession at all. 
Notwithstanding so many differences, here are fewer quarrels 
about religion than elsewhere, the people living peaceably 
with their neighbours of whatever profession. They all 
agree in one point, that the Church of England is second 
best. "3 

This accommodating spirit noted by the Dean was 
enforced in most piquant manner by Captain William 
Wanton, a Quaker and a son of a preacher. He courted 
Ruth Bryant, the beautiful daughter of a Presbyterian 
deacon in Scituate, Mass., who would not hear of such 
laxity in marriage, but the ardent groom solved the difficulty. 



» Ibid., p. 160. 
' Ibi.1., p. 157. 
' Ibid., p. IfiO. 



"Ruth, I am sure we were made for each other; let us 
break away from this um-easonable bondage. I will 
give up my religion and thou shalt give up thine and 
we will go to the Church of England and the devil 
together."^ 

Lodowick Updike gives his boyish impression of the 
liberal Dean in Trinity pulpit. "All sects rushed to hear 
him; even the Quakers, with their broad brimmed hats, 
came and stood in the aisles.^ In one of his sermons he 
very emphatically said 'give the devil his due, John Calvin 
was a great man.' "^ 

Rev. James McSparran settled at St. Paul's church in 
Narragansett in 1721, was not as tolerant toward the 
"pestilent heresy" of the Quakers. He stated that there 
was no estabhshed religion "but the Quakers are, for the 
most part, the people in power."* George Fox came in 
1672, on his powerful mission. William Penn said of him 
that he was "civil beyond all forms of breeding." His 
influence, working on the radical settlers of the island and 
their descendants, must have had gracious effect. Histor- 
ians and critics rooted in the established order of the six- 
teenth and following centuries, when judging dissent, can 
only see janghng differences; for they are blindly uncon- 
scious of the indestructible elements of beauty, growing out 
of freedom from arbitrary control in religious and social 
matters. Good Dean Berkeley cited four varieties of 
Anabaptists among his new friends and neighbors. Ana- 
baptism simply meant the worst form of anarchy to an 
ordinary Catholic or Calvinist of the differing centuries. 
Yet the conservative Erasmus could term them "a people 
against whom there is very little to be said." In some 
cases, goaded by severe laws, they were wild and fanatical, 
but were in general mystically sincere and pious. They 



* Annals of Trinity Church, p. 52°. 

* "In 1700, one-half the inhabitants were Quakers. Annals Trinity Church, 
p. 10. Roger Williams affected the Island settlement indirectly. He differed in 
doctrine from the Friends; while on the other hand, the system of laws established 
by Coddington and Clarke was adopted by the whole colony and enabled Providence 
to maintain a cohesive government. 

* Updike, Narragansett Church, p. 120. 

* Ibid., p.510. 



were not necessarily historical Baptists, though the rite 
of baptism usually distinguished them. 

In the great social influences forming the Newport of 
mid-eighteenth century, the Literary and Philosophical 
Society with the Redwood Library were powerful factors. 
The first institution was formed in 1730; some claiming 
that it was originated by Berkeley. Mr. Mason a compe- 
tent and sympathetic authority says it "owed something 
of its influence to him we may readily admit; but when 
he came to Newport, intellectually, he found it no barren 
wilderness."^ The people were chosen and elect, whether 
we consider Coddington, John Clarke and the disciples of 
Anne Hutchinson, or the friends of Roger Williams, or the 
converts of George Fox, or the enterprising spirits gathered 
into "the most thriving place in all America." The Quaker 
Wanton and the high Puritan Ruth Bryant moulded into 
genial Episcopalians were fair examples of this annealing 
culture. 

They had books already, as will be shown later, and 
representatives of all the sects, Jacob the Quaker scientist, 
Collins and Ward, Seventh Day Sabbatarians; Callender, 
a Baptist; Leaming, a Congregationalist ; the Episcopal 
Honyman and others banded together. There was an 
elaborate set of rules, with forfeits and fines for all sorts 
of neglect and misfeasance, as was common then; some 
showing the earnest spirit of life prevailing. 

The Society was to consider "some useful question in 
Divinity, Morality, Philosophy, History, etc." but "nothing 
shall ever be proposed or debated which is a distinguishing 
religious tenet of any one member. . -. . ^^^loever 
shall make it an excuse to avoid giving his opinion, that 
he has not thought of the question, or has forgot what 
the question is, shall forfeit one shilling, ^^^loeve^ is 
unprovided of a proper question, on his turn to propound 
one, shall forfeit one shilling."^ 

The first "authentic paper" is dated 1735, though there 
must have been earlier examples. The Society was con- 



' Annals Redwood Library, p. 2. 
'Annals Redwood Library, p. 14. 



8 

ducted vigorously and continued until about 1747 and 
had some Occasional Members, among whom was Stephen 
Hopkins of Providence. Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
another participant, lived at Stratford, Conn. He was an 
ardent disciple of Berkeley, visiting him soon after his 
arrival. As he was invited to the rectorate of Trinity in 
1750, it shows the permanence of Berkeley's influence in 
the Colony. Afterwards he was President of King's College, 
New York. 

Newport was a favorite destination for Scotch immigrants, 
and accordingly their influence was strong in the community. 
We get an inkling of the relative importance of the port 
from this statement of Dr. Waterhouse. ''Between the 
years 1746 and 1750 there came over from Great Britain 
to the English Colonies a number of Scotch gentlemen. 
Some settled in Philadelphia, some in New York, but the 
gi'eater part sat down in that pleasant and healthy spot, 
Rhode Island. "1 

Edward Scott^ the grand-uncle of Sir Walter, was for more 
than twenty years, master of the grammar and classical 
school. He was an active member of the Philosophical 
Society and Librarian of the Redwood. 

There had been collections of books all through the cen- 
tury. Regulations of the Library of Trinity Church were 
recorded in 1709. Some of those volumes exist in fair 
preservation, stamped in gold letters "Belonging to y* 
Library in Rhode Island."^ Bequests down to 1733 show 
small collections of good books. John Clarke in 1676 left a 
Concordance and Lexicon written by himself, also a Hebrew 
Bible. Benedict Arnold in 1733 left, besides Quaker books, 
Milton, Quarles, Fuller and Plutarch. In 1747, the Red- 
wood Library was engrafted on the stock of the Philo- 
sophical Society. Abraham Redwood, a wealthy merchant 
and liberal Friend, gave £500. Henry Collins, a Seventh 
Day Baptist, furnished the land on which the Library 
stands. Born in 1699, he was a product and a maker of 
the culture we are studying. Doctor Benjamin Water- 

i Ibid., p. 28. 

* Annals Trinity Church, p. 55. 

» lb d., p 19. 



V 



house, a close friend of Gilbert Stuart, — himself a graduate 
of the University of Leyden, finally professor of Medicine 
in Harvard College — called Collins the Lorenzo de Medici 
of Rhode Island. Hon. William Hunter said of him, "he 
loved literature and the fine arts; had the sense of the 
beautiful in nature conjoined with the impulse to see it 
imitated and surpassed by art; he was a merchant, enter- 
prising, opulent and liberal. Smibert was the father of 
true painting in this country. . . . Collins was fortun- 
ate enough to engage his earliest labors . . . his 
own portrait. Clap, Callender, above all Berkeley himself. "^ 

The list of books^ ordered from London is interesting, 
and we may glance at a name here and there, for we have 
the spirit of the time in black letter. There were 114 
titles in folio. Barclay and Penn, Barrow, Burnet's Refor- 
mation, a general dictionary of ten volumes. Hooker, Grotius, 
Wood's Laws of England, Sir William Temple. In quarto 
73 titles include dictionaries, Cudworth, Eusebinis, Fluxions, 
Boyles, Bacon, and Rowe on AVheel Carriages. The octavos 
cover 95 standard classics, with an occasional Erasmus, 
Puffendorf or Johnson. History took 73 titles, Divinity 
and Morality 48, which varied from Sherlock, Butler, War- 
buton to Mrs. Rowe's "Friendship in Death" or "Young 
Gentleman and Lady Instructed." Forty titles were in 
Physick, 24 in Law, 54 in Natural History, Mathematics, 
etc., 55 in Arts Liberal and Mechanical, 37 in Mis- 
cellanies, Politics, etc. In duodecimo, there were 135 
examples of very good general reading, as we should 
phrase it. 

These names embody the books they desired; perhaps 
we should scan more closely those given by several gentle- 
men; for the volumes are such as they had. In folio 28 
titles show Baxter, Beaumont, Fletcher, Chaucer, Hero- 
dotus, Homer, Justin Martyr, the Rambler, Spenser. 
In 22 quarto, 54 octavo were Descartes, Middlcton, Addi- 
son, Bolingbroke, Calvin's Institute in Latin, Douglass' 
Summary from the author, Gentleman's Magazine for two 



» Ibid., p. 27 



* Ibirt., p. 27. 

* Annals Redwood Library, p. 494 



10 

years, twelve magazines from Philadelphia, Grey, Young's 
Night Thoughts, Roderick Random, Pope, Erasmus. 

In a thriving and progressive community, accidents as 
well as incident contribute to the vital increase. As the 
Scotch "forty-five" sent out emigrating rebels to give 
needed strength to the new world, so the earthquake at 
Lisbon in 1755 sent more than sixty families of accomplished 
Jews^ who were generally wealthy merchants, attracted by 
liberal government and commercial opportunity, to our 
little isle by the sea. 

The Jew first embodied and represented in an individual, 
the creative power of industry, flippantly characterized 
as the "Almighty Dollar." It is a fructifying idol, not 
almighty indeed, but powerful to enlist man with man, 
and to hold him subjected — not to a greater and sovereign 
man — but to citizen and people embodied in the State. 
Feudahsm had been tested and found wanting, as it has 
been recently outgrown in Japan. Greater than the uni- 
versal imperial power of Egypt and Assyria, greater even 
than Rome, was the economic force of industry; pledged 
to the State as a whole, but returning to each man in his 
own pocket, a universal tribute of mankind to man — the 
dollar. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, baptized 
in the blood and sacrifice of French feudal privilege, was 
necessary to garner in and bestow on each peasant or 
householder, this new tax, toll, impost and assessment of 
society, payable to its least and lowest member. 

Meanwhile, England was so far ahead of its compeers 
in modern development that it had cut off the head of a 
king in the seventeenth century, by way of showing privi- 
lege and blind despotism, what was meant by the awakening 
of the human mind. All this is frequently treated as being 
absolutely involved in constitutional government, expanding 
suffrage and parliamentary representation. Truly, it is a 
part of these great categories of human progress, but it 
is even more part and portion of the larger social movement; 
by which not only is government parcelled out by King, 
Kaiser and cabinet, by parliament, democratic party or 



• Newport Historical Magazine, Vol. IV. p. 162 



11 

aristocracy to render political rights fairly; but also by 
which the economic dollar flowing out of capitalist's coffer 
or laborer's pocket can renovate and fructify the whole 
movement. 

By this extraordinary exercise of social force in the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth centuries, the face of the world was 
rapidly changed, Napoleons being elevated, or in turn 
crushed, by the way. The greatest exponent, the largest 
interpreter of this universal social force, working through 
particular individuals, was the historic Jew. He was little 
comprehended then, he is not wholly understood to-day. 
Anyone can see that the new economic dispensation did 
not endow the feudal descendants of fabled Roland or 
historic Richard with new privilege; nor did it allegate to 
the robber dynasties of Napoleonic marshals the adminis- 
tration of the new powers of society. It went to the Ghetto 
for new administrators, in the persons of shivering Shylocks 
and abject Isaacs of York. The scions and representatives 
of these new social administrators came out on the enlarged 
Rialto, the modern Bourse. 

I hinted in the beginning, rather than aflRrmed that 
Newport was a wayside product of the whole social eighteenth 
century. The Jew, with his enlarged intelligence and 
creative skill, went into an appreciative and responsive 
atmosphere. 

The "metropolitan" community, as it called itself in 1712, 
had come to be an important mart. Dr. McSparran and 
Douglass substantially agreed in reporting the commerce 
of 1750 to 1760. Butter and cheese, grain, fat cattle, fine 
horses, pipe staves and lumber were among the exports, 
largely to the West Indies. The Narragansett pacers 
were famous, pacing "a mile in little more than two minutes, 
a good deal less than three, "^ according to the worthy 
parson. There were above 300 vessels of sixty tons and 
more, including coasters, in the export trade. In 1749, 
there were 160 clearances for foreign voyages.^ In 1770, 
there were at least 200 vessels in the foreign and 400 in the 



' Updike, Narragansett Church, p. 514. 

' Rhode Island Historical Magazine Vol. VI., p. 310. 



12 

coasting trade/ the population having grown to 12,000. 
After 1707, trade in sugar, rum, and negroes grew rapidly. 
Sugar and molasses were distilled at Boston and more at 
Newport. The slaves were generally carried to the West 
Indies, sometimes to Newport or Boston. Much capital 
from Boston assisted in the business at Newport.^ i'riva- 
teering in the French and Spanish wars was a stimulating 
element in commerce. The Wantons, Ellerys, Malbones, 
indeed almost all the names are represented in this warring 
commerce. 

Rev. James Honyman^, Scotchman and rector of Trinity 
from 1704 until 1750, was conciliatory in his ministry, 
drawing hearers from all the surrounding country. Dr, 
McSparran, Irishman of Narragansett, learned, acute, 
disputatious, was a keen sectarian, believing in anybody's 
establishment, if he could not have his own. He found in 

1721 "a field full of briars and thorns." 

"Here liberty of conscience is carried to an irreligious 
extreme."* 

We get a wider outlook and more judicial report from 
Arthur Brown, son of a rector of Trinity. He hved in 
Newport until 17 years old, then entered Trinity College, 
Dublin, becoming Senior Proctor and Professor of Greek. 
He wrote: 

"The innocence of the people made them capable of liberty. 
Murder and robbery were unknown. During nine years at 
Newport from 1762 to 1771^ (I speak of my own knowledge) 
only one person was executed, a notorious thief and house- 
breaker one Sherman, . . . The multiplicity of secre- 
taries (sic) and strange wildness of opinions, was disgusting 
to a reasonable mind, and produced as great a variety, 
though with no such pernicious effect as in the reign of 
Charles the First; upon the whole, however, there was 
more genuine religion, morality and piety diffused than 



» Ibid.. V 7. p. 47. 

* Weeden, Economic and Social History of New EtiRland, Vol. II, pp. 455-469. 
' Annals Trinity Cliurch. p. 94. 

* Updike, pp. 511, 514. 

* It will be remembered the population was 12,000. And we should compare the 
legal and criminal experience of England at same period. 



13 

in any country I have ever seen. . . . The state of 
literature in America was by no means contemptible."^ 
The refined culture of such a people must find expression 
in art, though tht? century was not fruitful in the plastic 
arts. John Smibert, another Scotchman, is considered to 
have been the first artist of note in America. He came 
to Newport with Dean Berkeley and painted many por- 
traits there. Robert Feke, little known, but one of the 
best colonial artists, practised there in the mid-century. 
Gilbert Stuart, the marvellous delineator of Washington 
born in Narragansett, educated in Newport, was formed 
at the beginning by these collections of pictures. Cosmo 
Alexander, an artist of repute, spent two years in America, 
mostly on the island; he taught Stuart and first took him 
to England. Washington Allston was fitted for college in 
Newport. Edward G. Malbone, born at Newport in the 
revolutionary time, was self-taught and the atmosphere of 
the island-paradise lighted up his palette. Benjamin 
West said of his "Hours" that "no man in England could 
excel it. " There is in the delicate lines of this bit of ivory 
a "dignity, character and expression"^ inspired by the 
whole ideal life I have attempted to set forth. We have 
in these words, the criticism of a sympathetic artist. I 
would note also a certain grace which is the refining excel- 
lence of beauty. 

The grace of culture may be rendered in a picture; its 
strength and force must be represented by a man or men. 
Ezra Stiles, though not the outgrowth, was a collateral 
product of our island. Coincident with the Jewish immi- 
gration, hv^ became minister of the Second Congregational 
Church in 1756, at twenty-nine years of age, influenced 
"partly by an agreeable town and the Redwood Library." 
He was Librarian during most of his twenty years sojourn. 
Corresponding with European authors, he solicited books 
for the Redwood. His folio Homer is preserved fully 
annotated by him in the original Greek. He becanie Presi- 
dent of Yale College, the natural precinct of Jonathan 



•Rhode Island Historical Majrazine, Vol. VI., pp. 161, 168-171. 
* Arnold. Art and Artists in Rhode Island, p. 9 



14 

Edwards^ who had told the previous generation that the 
"existence of all exterior things is ideal." 

Stiles formed Chancellor Kent, and Channing inheriting 
his Newport teachings said " in my earliest years, I regarded 
no human being with equal reverence." If he had done 
no more than to affect seriously these two men, America 
would owe him a great debt. 

This happy community was fatally damaged by the 
Revolution, when its commerce fled to the safer port of 
Providence. Many of its citizens were loyalists, and the 
armies of both contestants trampled over the city. The 
society created by its peculiar culture was scattered, and 
the true "Paradise of New England" ceased to be. 



* We should note the sympathy, correlative though not derived, between Edwards 
and Berkeley. "The soul in a sense, has its seat in the brain; so in a sense, the 
visible world is existent out of the mind; for it certainly in the proper sense, exists 
out of the brain. . . . Space is a necessary being, if it may be called a being; 
and yet we have also shown, that all existence is mental, that the existence of all 
exterior things is ideal. " Cited from Edwards by Sereno E. Dwight. Life and 
Letters of Berkeley, p. 182. 




HBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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